


Delay

by GretchenSinister



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen, Minor Character Death, Suicide, rated T for thematic elements, very light presence of the ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-22 08:55:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22079980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "Sorry if I do something wrong,This is my first prompt. (But I really love this movie so I decided to give it a try.)This one is based off something I saw on the RotG wiki,Stating that Bunnymund “might have the ability to travel through time’‘http://riseoftheguardians.wikia.com/wiki/Interesting_FactsSo Jack is feeling quite upset with the fact that even though he’d found out he had a sister,It was long after she died,And he can’t stop wondering what happened to her after his death.Meanwhile,North (Or any of the other Guardians) forces Bunnymund to find out why he has been so distant lately.After finding out,Bunny decided to help Jack out by sending them both to the past,Giving the boy a chance to watch his sister grow up.(Bonus points if Jack gets way too emotional and can’t stop himself from shedding a few tears at the end,While Bunny’s trying to cheer him up)Possible fluff if you want. :)"This is not fluff. Bunny and Jack observe his sister’s whole life. However, the thing about time travel is that you can only observe, not interfere.
Relationships: E. Aster Bunnymund/Jack Frost
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42
Collections: JackRabbit Short Fics





	Delay

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 6/11/2013.

“Whoa, Frostbite. Did a hurricane hit your room?”

Jack looks up from the array of books and papers spread out over the floor of his room at the Workshop, smiling distractedly at Bunny. “C’mon, Bunny. Can’t you see this is a highly organized system here?”

“A highly organized system of what?”

“Oh, you know…” Jack waves his hand vaguely. “Research.”

Bunny laughs in disbelief. “Research? The guy who takes pride in every snow day he causes is holed up in his room doing _research_? Maybe the others were right to wonder what you’ve been doing.”

“Well, tell them whatever you want. Now this is kind of important, so if it’s clear that I’m alive, I’d appreciate it if you let me get back to it.”

Bunny glances down at one small pile of papers. It’s a printout from a website, and it’s titled “Tips for Finding Early American Vital Records.” “What exactly are you researching? Yourself?”

“Um…not really, no. I know when I died. I’m just looking for…” Jack breaks off his statement and looks up at Bunny. “Before I died I had a little sister. I’m trying to figure out what happened to her.” He looks back down at the papers. “It’s slow going, since you can’t trace your ancestors if you’re not actually a descendant, but, you know. I have time.”

“You’re probably not going to get much sense of her life just from a few records.”

“Yeah, Bunny. I know that. That doesn’t mean what I’m doing is a waste of time.”

“No need to get defensive, mate. I wasn’t done. You should have told me what you were doing right away. I can help you. Look. This isn’t something I do very often, but I can sort of travel in time. I could help you see her.”

The rush of hope from Jack is like a fresh spring rain, and Bunny wishes he’ll be able to fulfill it.

“You’d do that? For me?” Bunny nods. “But wait. Why don’t you do it that often? Are we going to cause, like, paradoxes?”

Bunny shakes his head. “That’s the thing. We can’t. We can only observe. Time—at least for me, as a Spring spirit, is cyclical. That’s why I can go back. But time also progresses, so the past can’t be undone. It’s like a spiral, I suppose. And just seeing the past—well. I’m a Spring spirit. I try to focus on the new. But if you really want to see your sister, I’ll take you back.”

“Yes! Yes, of course I do! Can we leave from here? Do we have to go to Burgess first? This is amazing!”

“Jack. Maybe you should think about this for a day, at least. Maybe a few days. We can only observe. We will pass through people if we try to interact with them. Are you prepared for that? We could find anything. I mean, just the time that’s passed makes it guaranteed that you could see her death if you wanted to and maybe even if you don’t want to, since we don’t know when it happened.”

“Bunny, I really want to do this. We don’t have to see her whole life today—I just want to see her any way I can! I wonder what she was like at my age.”

* * *

Bunny refuses to take them all the way back to the moment of Jack’s death. Instead, he starts their journey one year after the drowning.

Emma is a quiet girl, soft-spoken and often daydreaming. Jack watches her learn to spin, and sew, and embroider her first sampler with the letters of the alphabet. He sees her learn to read, and write, and use those skills to create little poems that she writes in charcoal on the boards under her bed, where no one will look for them. She grows taller, and she is often out walking in the woods near the house, making up stories as the summer sunlight slants through the pines. And it is always summer sunlight, for she tends to stay close to her family’s hearth during winter. There, around others, she is quieter than ever before. As she nears Jack’s age, that quietness and her kind manner have earned her an admirer in one of the village boys, and Jack wonders if his last name will allow him to find even more family he never knew he had.

Then, one early spring, when she is exactly Jack’s age, she goes back to the pond her brother died in. It’s still iced over, but when she tests it with her foot, the ice creaks. She nods. Today, she is not telling herself a story.

Bunny tries to get Jack to ask to move on, but he shakes his head. There’s something about this that doesn’t seem right. They have to stay, until…

“Until what?” Bunny asks.

Jack shakes his head and watches her, standing very still. He’s beginning to feel cold, the kind of cold he’s only felt once in his life as Jack Frost.

Emma stands at the side of the pond for nearly an hour. Sometimes she clasps her hands as if praying. At the end of the hour, she takes a letter out of her pocket, and sets it in the crook between two low branches of a nearby tree.

“Bunny…” Jack says, unable to get enough breath to speak above a whisper.

“Do you want to move forward?”

“No!”

With the letter placed, Emma walks back to the bank. She takes her shoes off, sets them in the melting snow, and sets off barefoot onto the creaking ice. For a few moments, she walks where the ice is thicker, more often shaded by the surrounding trees. Where Jack pushed her before falling through.

She does not stop at her spot. She goes to Jack’s, in the sunlight. In her careful, graceful way, she sits down on the ice, and closes her eyes. When the ice gives way a few minutes later, she gasps, and looks up at the sun, but that is all.

As Bunny had warned, she could not be moved or saved by Jack this time, because she hadn’t been.

Only when the ice closes over again does Jack allow Bunny to take him back.


End file.
